Deadly Chemistry (Entangled Ignite)

by Teri Anne Stanley

  If he wanted to see her, why go all the way out to the shelter? Why not just visit her again at work? Maybe he had some sort of thing against flirting on company time. But then, if he was interested in her, why didn’t he ask her out? Not that she was going to go out with him, anyway, but she wanted to know what was going on. She was a scientist. That’s what scientists did. They solved interesting puzzles—they didn’t moon around, obsessing over hot maintenance men.

  As she rounded the corner at the end of the hall, she saw what appeared to be all of her co-workers standing in the hall outside of her lab. When someone saw her, a murmur went through the crowd, and everyone—like some sort of a departmental cyborg—turned to look at her.

  “What’s going on?” Was there a dead custodian in her lab? That had happened to someone she’d known in grad school. A professor came in one morning and found one of the cleaning staff dead on the floor of his lab. Apparently, the guy had a bit of a drinking problem and had decided to sample the alcohols that were stored in the flammable cabinet. Unfortunately, the custodian hadn’t understood that “methanol” wasn’t interchangeable with the drinkable “ethanol” and had poisoned himself. It was a messy way to die.

  The group outside of her door parted and Dr. Hector Jerrold, the department chair, stepped forward, running a gnarled hand through his thick, gray hair. He looked like an overweight, Hispanic Einstein. Wait—Jerrold was there? A sudden jolt of adrenaline hit her. Uh oh. It must be bad if the old man left his hallowed office. This was not going to be good.

  “Lauren,” he began, then stopped and looked back through the door of her lab. He didn’t smile.

  She forced her lungs to push air over her vocal cords, her lips to move. “Is everything okay?”

  Hector frowned. “I don’t know how to tell you this—”

  By this time, Lauren was almost even with the door, so she took a few more steps forward and looked inside. After her heart started sending blood back through her brain, she recognized utter destruction.

  There were broken bottles and beakers on every surface, liquid dripping from the blue composite counters. Books and papers were scattered, pages torn out and soaked. Her little centrifuge was tipped over, the electronics ripped out of it. The scale was crushed.

  “Lauren, I don’t know what to say.”

  She took a deep breath and her brain kicked back into gear. “Oh, God. My algae.”

  …

  “Hey, bud. Perfect timing.”

  “S’up?” Mike barely glanced at Jason as he walked into the office and swiped his ID badge through the card reader, clocking in. He checked the time. “I’m okay. I’m on the later shift.”

  “Yeah, I know.” Jason peered at him. “You look a little rough. Out all night partying?”

  “No, my house guest was up howling.”

  “Dayum, son, did you get laid?” Jason held up a hand for a fist bump, but Mike ignored it.

  “No, I got a cat.”

  Jason snorted. “Anyway, there was some vandalism over in the Bio Building last night. I’m gonna need your help over there today. I already let the dispatcher know to put your other jobs on a back burner for the time being.”

  Mike looked up. A fire engine had pulled out of the lot as he’d parked, but he hadn’t thought much of it. He’d figured it was just a fire drill in a dorm. “What happened?”

  “Somebody trashed one of the labs. It’s your girl’s place.”

  Adrenaline spiked through Mike’s veins. He barely knew Lauren, but the thought of her in danger made him want to growl. “Is she okay?” He didn’t bother to argue that “his girl” wasn’t his girl. That was kind of a non-issue under these circumstances.

  Jason shrugged. “Cool as a cucumber. I saw her when I went over. She wasn’t there when it happened. We got called over to check it out right after I got here, but there wasn’t anything we could do until the cops left. Housekeeping’s got a big job ahead of them, and a lot of equipment was damaged, so I need you over there to try to figure out what’s fixable and what needs to be replaced.”

  “Damn,” Mike said. He grabbed his work phone and clipped it to his belt. He wanted to rush over, make sure Lauren really was okay, but forced himself to slow down. Who would have done this? Someone after her drug?

  His stomach clenched. Dylan. His little brother had said he’d been working late in the lab with Lauren, which was a lie because Mike had been with her. But maybe Dylan had been alone in the lab, destroying it. Except why tell Mike he was there when he knew the damage would be discovered?

  He briefly considered that maybe Lauren herself had done this. Maybe she’d driven away from her bleeding heart animal rescue shelter to destroy expensive equipment in a crazy, savage fit of psychosis. Yeah, right.

  Every time he wondered about her being part of the Devil’s Rangers, his heart gave a weird squeeze. Although he wasn’t into self-delusion, he didn’t really think that she was involved—hopefully, that was true, and not just because he wanted her, in spite of himself. At any rate, he wasn’t going to find out anything standing there gathering wool while Jason scratched his armpits. “Okay, I’m heading over there.”

  …

  Lauren stood in the doorway of her lab, holding a lab coat and box of gloves that someone had handed to her. She couldn’t leave this mess for the housekeeping staff—she needed to find out what was salvageable. And find out if she still had a project.

  The cops had come and gone, too, although they’d kept her out of her own lab as they’d processed the scene.

  They’d asked her the same questions—any sign of forced entry? Nope, the doorframe was completely unscratched. Which was weird, because she was sure she’d locked up before she left last night. Did she know who would have destroyed her lab? Nope again. Who would do something like this? Did she have enemies? Yeah, riiiiight. She’d almost laughed at that one.

  While the police had been there, the other members of the department kept popping by, surprisingly generous with offers of refrigerator and freezer space—commodities that were often jealously hoarded. Evan was the only one who was still physically present, however. Once the police left, there was no more gossip to collect. She sighed and held the box of gloves between her knees while she wrestled her arms into the lab coat. Time to get to work.

  Evan handed her a pair of plastic shoe covers. “Here. Wear these. You don’t know what’s contaminating the floor.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Are you okay?” Evan’s formal reserve slipped a bit, and he put his hand on her arm. He was a good guy under all that uptight armor, which made her think of his completely-wrong-for-her brother with the mysterious background and dark look in his eye.

  “I will be. I just can’t believe someone came in here and did this. I can’t believe no one saw anything.”

  “I was here until late,” Evan said. “I saw the cleaning people leave, and everything was fine. The perpetrators must have come in during the dead of night.”

  “Miss Kane?”

  Lauren turned to see a man in a Tucker Police Department uniform striding toward her. He was about thirty, African American, with a gleaming shaved head and the height and lean power of someone who hadn’t stopped playing basketball after his high school—or maybe even college—career had ended. Of course, she was making an assumption that all incredibly tall guys played ball. His long face was serious, but not unsympathetic.

  “I’m Chief of Police Dwayne Crawford,” he told her, shaking her hand. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.” He turned to Evan. “Nice to see you, Evan.”

  Evan nodded stiffly. “Hello, Chief Crawford.”

  The man sighed. “Oh, for God’s sake, we went to preschool together. You really, really don’t need to call me ‘Chief’.”

  Evan almost smiled.

  Chief Crawford turned his attention back to her. “This your lab?”

  Lauren nodded.

  Evan said, “I’ll be in my office if you need me.”
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br />   “Thanks,” Lauren said. Then, puzzled by why a police chief would be at her lab, she turned to the police chief. “Since when does the police chief show up at the site of a little vandalism?”

  “Tucker’s a small force, and we don’t get crimes like this often.”

  He looked over Lauren’s shoulder, into the lab. “It looks like you’ve got a hell of a mess to clean up. Mind if I look around a little with you?”

  “I was just gearing up.” She handed him some gloves.

  “I’d like to see if you can identify anything that might be missing and get an in-person look at the graffiti.”

  “Graffiti? I don’t know anything about that.”

  “The first responders noticed it, but didn’t mention it to anyone because of its threatening nature.”

  Lauren looked through the door. She was hesitant to take a step over the threshold, as if by staying in the corridor, she could keep the destruction from being real. God, how was she going to replace all this stuff? “I don’t see anything. What kind of threats?”

  “Not very nice ones,” Crawford said.

  But before they entered the room, Mike burst through the fire door at the end of the hall, long legs eating the distance between himself and Lauren. He came toward her so quickly that she stepped back, lest he bowl her over, but he pulled up before that happened. She was close enough to feel his energy. A nice little vibration crawled up her back—one that had nothing to do with all the bad stuff that had happened in her lab.

  “Are you okay?” His dark brown eyes were nearly black, searching hers. Somehow he was more handsome this morning than he’d been last night. Probably a reaction based on the overflow of stress hormones running through her system. Yeah, that had to be it.

  Crawford was covering a smile with his hand. From the corner of her eye, Lauren noticed Evan come to his office door and stare at his brother. What was all that about?

  “Um, hi,” Lauren said weakly. She found herself leaning slightly forward, wanting to put her hands on his and pull his strong arms around her. Oh, no. That wouldn’t do. “I’m…I’m okay, I think.”

  Evan shook his head, turned, and shut the door.

  “Crawford,” Mike said, turning from her to shake the cop’s hand.

  “Gibson! It’s about time you showed your face. I told Evan you needed to come see me.”

  “Yeah, I’ve been pretty busy.” Mike said, looking away.

  Were they old friends? Enemies? Frienemies? It was a small town.

  “Uh, huh. Nice outfit, by the way.”

  Mike didn’t respond, but Crawford continued. “I told your brother you should have come to me for a job when you moved back to town. If you want to be back in a blue uniform, I could hook you up in something a little more up your alley.” He held up a hand when Mike glowered at him. “Not my business, I know.” He looked at Lauren, then back at Mike, who frowned. “What I didn’t know was that you’re involved with our victim.”

  “Oh!” Lauren said at the same time Mike said, “Huh?”

  “We’re not—I mean, there’s not—” She stopped and looked at Mike.

  “Do you know who did this?” Mike asked Crawford, not addressing the implication that there was something between himself and Lauren. There wasn’t, so that was a reasonable response. Except…God, she was just really glad to see him.

  “No clue who did this…yet,” Crawford said to Mike. “I was just about to take a look.”

  Mike hesitated, then said, “I’m supposed to make a list of equipment that needs repair. Should I come back later, or—”

  “You might as well come in now.”

  Lauren was so relieved that Mike was allowed to come in with her that she almost missed the hint of satisfaction that crossed his face.

  They pulled on the shoe covers and stepped across the threshold. Everything from the counters in the middle of the room had been tipped to the floor. The shelves above the center benches were likewise knocked over, contents spilled everywhere. The two cubicle desk spaces on the far wall, where the windows overlooked the parking lot, looked like a paper factory had vomited.

  The first thing Lauren looked for was her algae, which should have been bubbling happily in its giant flask. But it wasn’t. Oh, God. She stifled a gasp with a cough.

  “Are you okay?” Crawford asked.

  “Um, yeah. I just…yeah, I’m okay.” Her algae was gone. The incubation flask was full of pale green liquid, but someone had taken the time to strain out the organisms. All that was left was…algae pee. She swallowed, hard, hoping against hope that the bag of dried step one algae—and the purified step two liquid—were in the safe. They were not. The door hung open, the safe empty. Crap. The story she’d heard on the radio yesterday ran, loud and clear, through her head. A dangerous new drug…sending addicts to the hospital… Nausea rolled through her, threatening to bring her to her knees.

  She looked up. Crawford was examining something in the cell culture room. Mike stared right at her.

  “Dr. Kane, can you come in here?” Chief Crawford asked.

  Mike looked away.

  With slow steps, she walked to see where Crawford was pointing. When she saw the words written on the wall by the incubator, she nearly threw up.

  Chapter Seven

  Lauren looked truly green around the gills. Mike watched as Crawford put a hand around Lauren’s upper arm and steered her away from the room with the gruesome threat spray painted on the wall. Mike would have rather taken her completely out of the building, somewhere totally safe.

  Killing rats is killing dogs is killing monkeys is killing scientists. Are you next?

  Below the words was a squiggle that Mike recognized. He wondered if Lauren or Crawford knew it for the gang tag that it was. Dino Romain and the Devil’s Rangers had been here.

  “Why would someone say that?” Lauren said, nearly—but not quite—wailing. She was hanging on, but just barely.

  “Are you up for some questions?” Crawford asked.

  She nodded. “I guess so.”

  He pulled a notebook, similar to the one Mike still carried everywhere, from his shirt pocket. “Do you know who did this?”

  Lauren shook her head. “No. I don’t know why…” Her eyes flew to Mike’s and then to the safe.

  Crawford didn’t miss the look. “What do you keep in the safe?”

  She sighed. “step two. It’s a narcotic, stronger than morphine, produced by genetically altered algae. I change it…run it through a series of purification steps and alter one of the side chains on the main—” she said, then stopped, waved a hand, and started again. “Anyway, I turn it into a benign but powerful painkiller. I call that step three.”

  “What’s step one?”

  She gestured toward the giant flask that Mike recalled had been bubbling with dark green slime the day before. Now it held cloudy green water. “I call that step zero. Grow the algae. Then I strain it and dry it, make it into pellets. That’s step one. I didn’t produce steps zero and one this week.”

  She was lying. She’d told the truth about the missing vial of step two drug, but both big bags of step one pellets were gone. He knew she’d taken one bag with her the night before…the one she’d probably handed off to the old guy in the dusty Honda, but what about the other bag? There had been two on the counter when she’d been telling him about her research the day before.

  For some reason, knowing Lauren was lying about the missing algae didn’t set Mike’s overdeveloped conscience to DEFCON One. He should tell Crawford that she wasn’t being straight, but he didn’t. And he didn’t think it was because he wanted to bust her as part of the drug ring himself, since he didn’t. He’d give it some time.

  Crawford scribbled some more notes. “I think you’d better explain the whole process.”

  While Lauren recited everything she’d said to Mike the day before—but with more detail and bigger words—Mike examined the lab, partially to see what equipment was damaged but mostly to see
if he could figure out if Lauren could have trashed her own lab. He needed to know in his heart, to be one hundred and ten percent sure that she was innocent—because she was starting to matter to him. It didn’t make sense—she would just take her own stuff out of here, no one would know, no need to make a big mess. But then what was with the meeting last night, passing that stuff off to the old guy in the parking lot at the animal shelter? He had to find some way to casually find out if she’d indeed passed on her pellets to the old dude without triggering her suspicions.

  “I know you won’t have a complete inventory until you’ve had time to clean up, but can you tell me anything that’s missing?” Crawford asked.

  “Just…my step two drug.” Lauren met Mike’s gaze then, as though daring him to contradict her. But he wouldn’t. He wasn’t going to call her on her lie just yet. He would wait until Crawford was gone, find out what game she was playing. Yeah, he should probably speak up now, but something—hopefully not his hormones—was telling him to give her a chance.

  Meanwhile, he had to be a maintenance man. He made a note to check the freezer to make sure it held its temperature once it got set back upright, then pulled the ultracentrifuge away from the wall to see if he could put the control panel back in or if he needed to call in someone else.

  The old guy—Dr. Jerrold—who’d spoken to Evan in the hallway the day before, stuck his head through the door. He dressed like Evan probably would in another fifteen years—if not before. This guy’s pants were belted so far over his stomach that the hems were well above the tops of his black socks. Mike conceded to himself that Evan, at least, didn’t wear flood pants, and he kept his belt somewhere closer to his actual waist, even if he did wear a purple and green argyle sweater vest.

  “Lauren, do you have a minute? I need you to sign some papers for the insurance company.” The old guy looked at Crawford. “Your people took pictures? I’ll need copies.”